Sigmund Freud's Stages Of Psyychosexual Development

Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development

Introduction

The theory of psychosexual development was proposed by the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and described how personality developed over the course of childhood

In 1905, Freud published ‘Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality’. He broadened the definition of sexuality to include forms of pleasure that go beyond genital sexuality that established a developmental theory of childhood sexuality delineating the pathways of erotic activity from birth through puberty. In his theory he described a force by which the sexual instinct is represented in the mind known as Libido. However, the association of libido with sexuality is somewhat misleading as Freud 's intent was to encompass

Tension and hunger force the recognition and acceptance of persons in the outside world. In Freud 's view, then, the first psychological awareness of an object arises from the intense physiological need for a familiar experience that provides gratification and relieves tension.

The mother 's responsiveness to the child is critical in laying the foundations for the most rudimentary and essential basis for the subsequent development of object relations and the capacity for entering the world of human beings. She becomes the first love object for the infant in that she is recognized as the source of gratification of hunger and the provider of the erotogenic pleasure that the infant obtains from sucking.

If a warm, trusting, and affectionate relationship has been established between mother and child during the first few months of life, the stage is set for the development of trusting and affectionate relationships with others throughout life. Conversely, when the early mother-infant bond and the feeding experience are disturbed, the groundwork is established for subsequent problems in the area of object

The stimulation associated with having the anal area cleansed may lead to strong erotic feelings toward the mother. Later, conflicts over toilet training lead to aggressive and hateful feelings toward parental figures. Freud suggested that obsessive-compulsive persons had regressed to the anal stage of development. The ambivalence associated with the feces in conjunction with the parental control led those persons to become compulsively neat, rigid & domineering. Freud also described them as intensely ambivalent, troubled by simultaneous feelings of love and hate and by simultaneous wishes both to control and retain the object and to expel and destroy